Darth Fluffy

Who is "you"? Who are you saying has the authority to declare this and override your laws? Is there a "Treatment of Magic Entities" treaty that spells this out, like other treaties and agreements do for warfare? He's close enough that I wouldn't split hairs. (Well, maybe his, if they're in the way of whatever is being severed.) He fits your first criteria, lack of empathy. Is there reason to think he could get better? I would argue that by any reasonable standard, the danger has to be weighed as a factor, and he was out to kill all of Tedd's mom's relatives. That he wasn't feeding on them ("not an aberration") does not go far toward his favor. He was also a threat of a different kind in the mentally coerced cult he was rebuilding. Might he be able to manipulate his guards as well? Would you not agree that if you have a known threat, and you choose to hold him rather than execute him, then later he escapes and causes more harm, you bear a portion of the responsibility for that harm?

Fair enough, show me an actual space babe, and I'll believe you. Photoshop doesn't count. Yes, and it's the ST version of midichlorians.

Fair point. 0.999999:1.000000. I met a guy who was making that case back in the late 70s / early 80s.

Was it OK? Wierd Al does Canadian Idiot in Canada. He has said it is well received. My favorite Canadian spoof is this scene from Canadian Bacon.

Yeah, I don't have that technology. That's why I'm doing the 1:1 thing.

Arthur might have done a cursory check of available data; a real background check takes a while and involves interviewing people that know you.

I believe that's still the norm in our world, at least. I've been in cars where the middle rear seat was distinctly uncomfortable, but they had a third belt.

TomAEto, toAHto. Cheerleadra has been compared to a superhero in comic, and flies/floats like a DC super. Anyway, what exactly is a non-magic superpower? Produced by technobabble rather than * poof * ? Seems pretty much the same. Plus, we have the Word of Clarke. Evidently, they think they can. I would hope so. This came up because of the argument that all magic violation should have a trial (it was stated to be for Constitutional reasons). Who decided aberrations should not? Most of the ones we've seen have a near-human form. In my mind, not-Tengu has put himself over this line as well. To throw salt on this wound, I feel the same way about wild dogs in real life. Feral dogs and dog hybrids lack the healthy fear of man that makes wolves tolerable.

Fine, call it what you will, your sex drive is linked to a very small piece of nerve bundle/endocrine tissue. It's located where what I would erroneously call the lizard brain would be. My admittedly small vs 7 billion sample set says, "Yes, we all mask our true intentions, most of the time." Often from ourselves. Sorry, not meaning that you would be such a bonehead, but there are people, I'll go out on a limb and say primarily male, who hear "Women want to have sex" as "I have permission". You mean like "How can you murder abortionists because you're pro-life?" ? And there's this. You can't buy the chemistry sets commonly sold when I was a child. They are lawsuit bait.

It worked on Star Trek TOS, but I'm going to say here that it would not be normal or healthy outside of contrived fiction. Possibly merely incompatible, possibly hazardous, almost certainly full of squick; and you're in the uncanny valley if you get close, so much so that even if you had a common past ancestor, at stellar distances, with divergent evolutionary pressure, you may get there anyway. Granted, Grace is cute, but that's the power of fiction.

It could mean your subjective time vs an external reference, such as events or generations. That's certainly meaningful to you, the traveler.

Canuckistani, I believe. (In spite of the source.) Much of the world has belt technology. If Sarah informed him.

Noteworthy, Sarah and Justin are already there, no sign of Luke nor Sam. So it looks like it's not going to extend beyond Ashley.

Ooooh, yeah, the party has officially begun ....

Nope, missing the point. An amino acid is a member of a family of organic molecules. Earth life uses a limited set of those. It is not much of a stretch to think that life from another world that is similar to ours might not use the same exact set. In turn, the codons that construct the proteins from a different set would themselves also have to be somewhat different. Apparently so; now that you mention it, I vaguely remember it. Nope, although I think it was you that pointed out that wasn't true in Grace's case; only one Uryuom parent who provided the egg. The constructed egg takes on the role of another stage in reproduction, another sex. It has to filter and assemble a disparate set of genomes into a single viable genome. It does more than just shelter and provide food and environment for an embryo. Their eggs are reminiscent of egg shelters that sea life builds. ... or lends itself to being repurposed. Funny, I'd go with normal healthy sex with his girlfriend , because I think that's how he thinks of her, no matter what form she's in.

Because the movie would have sucked?

Yes, yes, we do have a tendency to think with the tiny lizard brain rather than the huge meat computer. Hmm, I guess "Thinking with the little head" has more than one meaning. I have come to find that I prefer a woman that I can also have a conversation with. I think she's fairly tame and conventional. Sorry, dude, but I cringe at the second part of your statement. A desire for sex is normal, if it weren't we would not have a libido. That said, it's not normal in every circumstance, I don't presume, and Good God, "No" means f@#%ng "No". In the state where i live, they teach abstinence only. The kids come out clueless and spread various forms of VD. And get pregnant, because they haven't been educated to use contraception. Virginity is seriously oversold. Ah, so it was.

There are continual challenges to the US Constitution as there are to any other, that's why we have a Supreme Court to defend it. Our own history has a major war over the interpretation of that Constitution that almost tore our nation apart. You will never run out of gray areas to define; as you define them, you create new boundary issues. Many practices of our government have always been controversial; not the same ones all the time, but there are always those controversies and issues. I remember seeing a video of a famous trial lawyer (long time ago, I think it was F. Lee Bailey) discussing the UCMJ, and how much fairer it was than the civilian trial system. What was particularly unfair about Gitmo, was people being held without charges nor hope of trials. There's still a few. We are talking about a universe in which super power exists. What if they know they cannot contain him when he regains his power. Does he still get a trial? Do aberrations get a trial? If not, why not? Who decided? Who gets to say they're not human any more. You know that someone d@#% well should. I know, right? They totally messed up discovering the splanch. I agree, it is. But is is also absolutely necessary. When you have active shooters in a school, the Constitutional rights of the shooters go out the window until they surrender and lay their weapons down. It has to be that way. But it is indeed a can of worms, leading to (some) police abusing their authority. I'd agree with that, my understanding of how the world works is pretty jaded. EGS is a bit of a Pollyanna universe, refreshing in its own way, but unrealistic at times. Case in point, Dan almost cannot create a negative character, he ends up over time making them sympathetic. Real people aren't like that; they are more like Rich, stubborn and obtuse, set in their ways. Mr. Verres's response to Abraham was appropriate for an active threat. He was at that moment a bad cop, because the perpetrator had surrendered and was in custody, and the danger was past. He was acting out of a very personal sense of emotion. But had it been not-Tengu, I'm not so sure. At some point he will awaken with renewed power, and he will be an already demonstrated dangerous threat.

So, with respect to Tedd, does that count as normal healthy sex with his girlfriend, furry f*@#ing, mostly bestiality, or all of the above? Or maybe, in the grand tradition of Capt. James T. Kirk, banging the alien babe; like father, like son? I'm not sure I'm mature enough for this comic. Let me check ... nope, definitely not. <shrug>

It is a weird trait to loose. Our ancestors were eating so much fruit that being able to make our own vitamin C was not longer a factor in survival?

I suspect that "We don't have big enough guns to shoot them down." has something to do with it as well. (If you can't orbit a satellite, you probably can't do asat either.)

Don't go there, Tedd. Therein lies madness.

Good points, he actually did violate quite a bit of law. I am curious what specific "destruction of property" you had in mind; the diamond? I don't think the golem would count. I think they would have had to explain his motivation as best they understood it, plus Sybil's remark says she and Arthur were aware. The most expedient way to deal with Magus is to get rid of him by returning him to his universe, assuming that's possible. If he is held and believes he is being treated unreasonably, he seems capable of becoming a significant threat. He's a liability here and an asset there, holding him accomplishes nothing. Some sort of service requirement while they are looking for the means to send him might suit all parties. I would expect extra-judicial judgement such as used with terrorists. Magical considerations, such as keeping it secret and threat level would override normal procedures. Would you think the aberrations would get a trial? Not-Tengu? (I frankly think he's too dangerous to hold. Tedd's mom apparently agrees.) To hold a not-Tengu or Magus, they would need a magic-resistant prison that also inhibit spell casting. Community service could only apply to people you did not think were an immediate threat, and you'd tend to err on the side of safety, I think. I think use of magic would be a given. At some level, it is necessary just for apprehension and confinement, so leaking into other aspects of justice would at least gradually happen. Who's going to object, since they don't know it exists? I think due to expediency within the magical subculture, it would just happen. I doubt those rules would apply. You can see that in our world, in espionage, counter-terrorism, police dealing with active threats (not to mention the whole cops abusing their authority that Liz brought up).

The p1$$1#& contest is decades old. Not edge of space but in 1960, you can imagine that the airspace claim was debatable. Followed by these planes. Some folks were not happy campers about being overflown. Spy satellites have pretty much taken over. Space has been useful from the earliest days. Comm sats began early. Landsat began in the early seventies. Imaging deep spae works much better from space.

One second per second.